


Broken Promises and Wasted Time

by orphan_account



Category: The Martian - All Media Types
Genre: Cancer, Chris may be a doctor but he's still an idiot, I'm so sorry., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6487768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was nothing Chris hated more than breaking his promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Promises and Wasted Time

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah you're not hallucinating - the title is from a JT song. I don't even care. I literally couldn't think of anything else and I wasn't about to name the fic "Cancer fic" because I'm trash but I'm not /that/ trash, ya dig?

When they’d rescued Mark Watney from that barren red planet all those years ago, Chris Beck swore he’d never again leave him behind. Unfortunately for him, this time? He doesn’t have a choice.

Chris is dying.

It started in the usual way, with an inexplicable pain emanating from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Sometimes sharp, sometimes throbbing, always tolerable. Right up until the moment it wasn’t.

Chris was a doctor, and he wasn’t an idiot. He knew something was wrong. But his annual checkup just a few months prior hadn’t shown any abnormalities, and he was just so busy. So _happy_. He was living his goddamn life with Mark and their veritable greenhouse of plants, and so he ignored it.

Ignored it right up until he couldn’t.

“Stage Four.” He slid the oncologist’s report across the table to Mark, who reached for it with trembling hands.

And wasn’t that something. The man’s hands trembled. Chris could have counted all the times he’d seen that and come up with a number less than… well. A small number. If he hadn’t known Mark loved him before, he’d have known it now.

Mark kept his thoughts to himself, for once. There was no berating. No blame. “What do you need?” he asked.

“Just you.”

It ended in the usual way, surrounded by family, beeping monitors, and nurses trying too hard to keep him comfortable. Because that’s all they could do – keep him comfortable. Right up until the end.

The last days, he asked that it be just him and Mark.

It was quiet in the room. Mark was sitting beside him, head bowed in something resembling prayer, though it likely wasn’t, not coming from Mark. Hope, maybe. Their hands were clasped together on the bed between them.

“I’m sorry,” Chris told him.

The words had scarcely left his lips before Mark was frantically shaking his head. “No. No, no, no. Don’t apologize to me, Chris. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t leave you behind again.”

As far as Chris was aware, Mark had remained dry-eyed throughout this whole experience. If he cried, Chris wasn’t witness to it. But just then, Mark looked close to cracking.

He hunched forward, pressing his forehead to their hands.

Chris was there with Mark, just like he’d promised. Right up until he wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry ily.


End file.
